


some kind of magic

by sohma



Category: Heartstopper (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-21
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-15 04:01:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 3,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16055150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sohma/pseuds/sohma
Summary: Charlie Spring was determined that this year would be different. This year, he’d figure out what made him separate from the others, why his powers waited so long to appear.





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> this fic was written for the Osemanverse Big Bang 2018. i hope you enjoy!

Charlie both adored and abhorred the summer.

When he was here, all he was expected to do was “try his best.” He was simply known as “the second Spring grandchild,” the one who manned the shop during the days. He wasn’t... Well, he wasn’t the same Charlie that people at school thought they knew.

And although he loved that all he had to do was sit at the counter of his grandparents’ shop and help any customers that walked in... He got so incredibly bored. Charlie hated how dusty the shop was, how the heat would only intensify its mustiness, how there was absolutely nothing to do while waiting for customers except to reread the many tomes his grandparents had left lying around. Tomes full of spells that he still couldn’t complete.

Because that was the other thing about the town that he stayed in during summer holidays: everyone had abilities. Abilities that had yet to manifest in Charlie, although Tori had been able to use hers for years, and Oliver’s had just started to make themselves known. Even if they never said anything about it, Charlie knew how his parents and grandparents worried for him.

But he was determined that this year would be different. This year, he’d figure out what made him separate from the others, why his powers waited so long to appear. All he needed to do know was to figure out how, exactly, he could do just that.   



	2. i

Charlie didn’t bother to glance up when the store’s bell chimed, announcing a new customer.

“Spring’s Sprigs and Such, how may I help you?”

It was always the same routine: customer walks in, wanders the shop for a bit, buys some ingredients, and leaves. The only variety was in what sort of customer walked in—and today’s guest seemed to be half-siren, judging by the scales and gills.

“Just browsing,” came the garbled reply.

Charlie went back to perusing his latest find: Spells for Exceptional Housewitches by Ginevra Matchwick. Not that he was planning to be a housewitch in the future, but a few simple hexes to help with chores could be useful once his powers manifested.

The customer slammed a few jars of coral onto the counter, causing Charlie to jump. 

“Just this, yeah?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

Charlie rang up the delicate ingredients as gingerly as possible, wrapping each jar in a few layers of old newspapers. He ignored the chime of the customer bell once it rang again as he continued to wrap the goods. Before he could issue out the usual greeting, though, the customer asked:

“Do y’have eye of newt here?”

Charlie looked up in surprise. Eye of newt was the most common ingredient—of course they carried it.  The person who had asked the question was new to Charlie: tall, broad-shouldered, and with close-cropped blond hair. His hair was all ruffled up and he seemed slightly out-of-breath, like he’d just been running. 

“It’s just over there,” Charlie said, pointing at the shelf with the ingredients used most often in spells. He finished ringing up the other customer and watched this new blond stranger look through the different shelves.

“Um... Sorry to bother again, but d’you know where phoenix tears are?”

“They should be just to your left.”

“Oh! Yeah, here they are, thanks.” The blond boy wandered through the store, eyes wide with wonder.

“Are you new around here?”

The blond stranger glanced over his shoulder at Charlie with a grin. “Is it that obvious?”

That smile made Charlie’s stomach do somersaults, and he knew he was already in too deep.

“You’re one of the Springs, then?”

“Oh. Um, well, yeah, they don’t let strangers man the registers...”

“So you’re a caster?”

Charlie didn’t want to disappoint this new boy with his lack of abilities, so he stayed quiet.

People with abilities came in all types: casters, healers, arcanists, and others. The Spring family was known for their strong casters, and even on Charlie’s mom’s side there were plenty of casters. It only made sense that he would be one, too, once his powers manifested. _If_ they manifested.

“Wow, being a caster must be so cool... My family is mostly just arcanists, so I haven’t been really taught anything yet. We only get our first runes when we turn eighteen, which means I only have a short while to go.” The blond stranger sighed wistfully and turned to smile at Charlie again. “You and your whole family are so lucky. You probably don’t even really have to practice to get spells right, yeah?”

That might have been true for Tori, but Charlie definitely didn’t have the natural call to his powers that his older sister did. He merely gave a halfhearted shrug, wishing that he could properly explain himself and befriend this new boy.

“Well, I best be off now—don’t want to keep my nan waiting too long for these!”

Charlie helped ring the boy up, the shop going silent except for the rustling of newspapers as Charlie wrapped the boy’s jars.

“It was nice to meet you, Charlie,” the stranger said with another smile as he walked out, then began jogging back home. Charlie watched him running home through the window and only realized once he saw the boy turn a corner to go up the hill that he never asked for his name—and that the stranger now knew his, thanks to his nametag.


	3. ii

“Sounds like that Nelson boy, alright.”

“Nan, he can’t be that bad.“

“Hah! All of them are liars and crooks. All of them, Charlie.”

Charlie’s grandmother had an age-old—okay, five-year-old—feud with the Nelson family who lived up in the cottage on the hill overseeing the village. Mrs. Nelson and Mrs. Spring quickly became acquainted when the latter first moved in to town, and while both initially feigned civility, all pretenses were quickly cast off due to... well, a cast-off, of all things. The two old women had had a competition to see who was the “better witch,” and which magic users were superior: casters or arcanists. Charlie’s grandmother insisted that Mrs. Nelson cheated in order to secure her success, and from that day forward she was officially banned from the supply store and deemed an enemy of the family. And of course, the ban extended to anyone bearing the Nelson surname.   
Including the very cute smiley boy.

Charlie was absolutely doomed.

“I can’t believe you let him into the store, Charles. I mean, really, we trusted you with the register!”

“Well, he was perfectly civil with me...”

His grandmother scoffed again. “Of course he was. They always pretend to be so nice, until they cheat you.”

“I don’t know what he could have cheated us out of, Nan. He just bought his phoenix tears and left.”

“Phoenix tears? What could the Nelsons possibly need with those...” Charlie’s grandmother continued muttering to herself as she walked over to a bookshelf and pulled out a huge spellbook. “What else did he buy, Charlie?”

“Er... Just some eye of newt, I think. Maybe unicorn hair?”

“My, my... This could range from the mundane to incredibly dangerous, and I’m terribly afraid of what the hag on the hill might be brewing up now.”

“I don’t think it could have been anything too serious...” Though the boy did seem like he was in quite a rush on his way out of the store.

Charlie’s grandmother slammed the tome shut and sighed in frustration. “Don’t get too cozy this summer, Charlie. You’re going to have to watch out for this new Nelson boy.”

While the thought of spending more time with the blond stranger would have made him excited just a few hours earlier, the thought now made Charlie’s stomach turn.   



	4. iii

“Hi Charlie!”

The sound of the now-familiar boy’s voice made Charlie slam his book shut with a start. Even though Charlie’s grandmother was vehemently against this... friendship, it seemed like the Nelson boy would find any reason to “stop by” Spring’s Sprigs and Such.

The Nelson boy was pretty secretive about most things, including his own name. “Don’t they say that your name has power in the old magic?” he’d told Charlie with a grin.

The few things that Charlie had managed to pry from him though were that he had a dog, he loved his mom, and that this was his first year staying with his grandmother in the village. Charlie had also found out that the Nelson boy only ever came into the shop when he was in charge of the register, because Tori had seen him passing by every so often and peek through the window only to immediately jog away after making “long and extremely uncomfortable” eye contact with her. 

Of course, that only made Charlie more interested in the boy, but he knew that his grandmother would skin him alive if she knew he was “colluding with the enemy.”

“We’re going to play rugby in the park a little later, d’you want to join us?” the Nelson boy asked, leaning against the counter where Charlie stood.

“Only if you tell me your name.”

The Nelson boy sighed dramatically and clutched at his heart. “Charlie, why do you always reject me like this? I just want you to meet some of my mates.”

Charlie tried and failed to suppress his grin. “Look, rugby lad, you know that this friendship isn’t going to work out. Our families are like... Blood enemies, I guess.”

Now it was the rugby lad’s turn to try and hold back his grin. “Blood enemies has a fun ring to it, but I’d prefer to be able to spend time with you outside of this place. Don’t you ever hang out in places that aren’t so...”

“Dusty? Dark? Run by my overprotective family? I wish I could say that I do, but I’m sort of on house arrest.”

“House arrest? What’d you do to get them so riled up?”

Charlie laughed nervously. This past year at school had been especially difficult for him, but he wasn’t about to go in-depth with a boy he could only refer to as the rugby lad. “Nothing much. They just, uh... They worry, y’know?”

Rugby lad nodded sympathetically. “My folks only ever let me out to run errands or walk Nellie. They’re probably worried that I’ll bump into you and we become the best of friends or something.”

Charlie grinned again. “Best of friends, huh?”

“Which we can’t properly become unless you actually spend time with me when you’re not wearing a nametag.”

“Would it help if I took it off?”

“It would help if you agreed to meet some of the other boys from the village. Even though you told me you’ve spent a few summers here, they told me that they never really spent time with you. I’m sure they’d want to.”

Once again, Charlie recognized that he didn’t want to get into his personal troubles with this extremely cute and mysterious boy. Even though he was friendly and smiley and joked with Charlie, he didn’t want to deal with home stuff right now. His summers were safe from the stress of school. The village was safe.

But he couldn’t just let him down without a reason, right?

“I’ve always had trouble making friends.” Charlie tried to shrug nonchalantly, but he felt like his movements were too stiff and jerky. “I dunno. I guess the opportunity to meet them just never came up.”

Rugby lad grinned broadly at him and leaned even further forward on the counter, so close that Charlie felt like their noses could touch at any second. “But Charlie, this is the perfect chance to meet them all! And I can be there as a sort of social buffer in case things get too uncomfortable for you.”

He leaned back slightly, smile still as broad as before. “I don’t want you to feel awkward or weird or anything. I just want to see you having... Well, having fun. Instead of being stuck in here all day dusting and reading your books.”

“But I like my books.”

“I like them too. I just think it’d be nice to see you without them.”

Charlie chewed on his lower lip. “I’ll… I’ll think about it, okay? Just let me ask my parents.”

The Nelson boy nodded sympathetically. “If they agree, and if you agree… You know where I’ll be.”


	5. iv

“Nicky, you know how Nanna feels about the Springs.” Mrs. Nelson continued to stir her tea as she affectionately ruffled her son’s hair.

He sighed in response. “They’re ‘bloody liars, the whole lot,’ I know.”

“Nicky. She does not speak like that.”

“She’s your mum, I’m pretty sure that you of all people can confirm that she does.”

“... Well, she doesn’t speak like that in public.”

Nick sighed again and continued to play with his dog Nellie’s ears. They were sprawled along Nanna Nelson’s mint-green-and-floral sofa, with Nellie resting her head on Nick’s broad chest. Nick’s mother flitted between the armchair next to the sofa and the kitchen, stirring her tea and sifting through mail.

“Charlie’s so nice though, Mum, I promise. He’s… He’s sweet, and quiet, and  _ so _ funny. I just want us to be friends.”

“And I know that he must be. The Springs are wonderful—we just can’t talk to them as long as we’re visiting Nanna.”

Nick huffed out another breath and Nellie copied him. He knew that his mother wouldn’t be able to understand why this bothered him so much that he couldn’t spend time with this wonderful boy. Charlie was kind to him in a way that Nick’s other friends weren’t, and made him feel happy in a way that Nick’s other friends couldn’t. 

“The thing is, though,” Nick said, “I know Nanna won’t let this whole ‘feud’ go any time soon. She just never forgives and never forgets.”

It was then Nick’s mother’s turn to sigh dramatically as she slumped into the armchair. “That woman has the memory of an elephant. But even elephants have to get over things sooner or later.”


	6. v

Charlie felt completely out of place in the field next to these vaguely familiar boys. They were faces that he’d seen throughout the several years of visiting Nan, but he didn’t expect to one day play rugby with them.

He also didn’t expect his own rugby lad to be named Nick. It was oddly normal, he thought, for someone so extraordinary.

Charlie didn’t know anyone who was so good at making people feel instantly comfortable; and even now, while he stood at a slight distance from the others, he still felt okay somehow. Out of place, to be sure, but not entirely uncomfortable.

“Charlie!”

Now everyone had turned to look at him and he was decidedly not okay.

“What position do you usually play?” Nick asked, bounding up to him.                                            

“I… I don’t usually play.”

Nick grinned abashedly. “Right. Yeah. Um. Well, we’ll figure it out. Come stand with the rest of us.”

And he grabbed Charlie’s hand to lead him to the rest of the gaggle.

“So, Charlie,” said one of the boys, a shorter one with spiked up hair, “what made you finally come out to talk to us?”                                                            

“Oh, it’s… Nick kept asking me to spend time with him and his friends, so I thought it might be fun.”

“We’re glad to have you,” another boy, this one a little taller, chimed in. “A lot of us have been wanting to meet you for a long time.”

“He never stops talking about you,” groaned a boy with glasses.

“Never,” agreed a taller boy with a high top. 

Nick was slowly turning bright red with every moment. “Alright, that’s enough! Let’s just play the game.”

 

After some fumbling as to where to place Charlie, everyone took their positions. Charlie was standing with the boy with glasses, whom Nick had later introduced as Sai.

“Nick is really great at helping people come out of their shells, huh?”

“Oh! Um, yeah, I think so. I mean, he got me to come out and play with you all today.”

“Right.” Sai pursed his lips. “You two have been spending a lot of time together.”

“He visits the store a lot, definitely.” Charlie grinned to himself.

“Doesn’t his grandmother kind of… Hate your entire family? How does he sneak out so much?”

Charlie shrugged. “I’m not sure. He mostly visits while walking Nellie.”

“Wow, he hasn’t even introduced Nellie to us yet.” Sai looked Charlie directly in the eye, suddenly grave. “He must really, really like you.”

Charlie felt his face heating up. “Oh. Well… I like him, too.”

The kept looking at each other until their silence was broken by the shouts of the other boys, the game having just begun.

 

“Ow, shit,” Nick muttered, cradling his ankle.

“Sorry,” said Omar, the guy with the high top. “I didn’t realize how hard I’d tackled you.”

“S’okay,” Nick said, hissing again as he pressed a sore spot. “It just really hurts.”

“Hey, Charlie,” Harry, the short boy with pointy hair, said with a smirk, “isn’t your family known for being casters?”

Charlie nodded nervously.

“So aren’t you a caster?”

Charlie nodded hesitantly.

“So… Can’t you heal Nick’s leg?”

“That’s what healers do, Harry,” muttered Christian, one of the other boys. “Besides, we can’t assume that Charlie would be able to do something like that.”

“Oh, right, you’re a year below us, aren’t you?” Harry clucked his tongue disappointedly. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have overestimated you.”

“I can still try,” said Charlie, kneeling before Nick. “Let me give it a try.”

“Char, it’s fine,” Nick said with a grim smile, still clearly in pain. “I’ll just ask Nanna for help when I get home.”

Charlie’s heart somersaulted at the pet name, but he had to put on his brave face in front of these boys. He knew that he couldn’t let them down or let Nick stay in pain.

He gently cradled Nick’s ankle in his arms and took a deep breath. “Here goes nothing.”

After half a moment, he heard the boys around them gasp.

“Holy shit,” mumbled Nick.

Charlie’s hands were glowing. He wasn’t even using that much effort to heal Nick, but his hands were creating a soft golden halo.

“Does it bother you?” he whispered, too scared to look Nick in the eyes. The other boy shook his head and swallowed, still staring at Charlie’s hands.

“I think… I think it’s okay now,” Nick said gently. Charlie immediately pulled his hands back, still surprised that it even worked. 

Shakily, some of the others helped Nick to his feet. He tested his ankle and grinned broadly at Charlie. “You did it. It feels better than ever.”

The boys crowded around Charlie, all laughing and chatting excitedly and clapping him on his shoulder.

Charlie had never safe in a huddle like this before, but he wouldn’t trade the warm feeling in his chest for the world.


	7. vi

Nick insisted on walking Charlie back home.

“You’re my hero, Char,” Nick laughed, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “You have no idea how grateful I am.”

“I’m grateful to you, too.” Charlie let out an unsteady breath and looked up at Nick. “That was my first time performing magic.”

At this, Nick actually halted in the middle of the sidewalk, just steps away from the shop. “Seriously? You were such a natural!”

Charlie nodded bashfully. “Seriously. I just… I felt like I had to do something, so I did. You did that, Nick, not me.”

Nick’s cheeks turned bright red as he looked away. “Oh, c’mon. You would’ve figured it out with or without me.”

“It definitely helped that it was you, though.”

“Now you’re just trying to get me to blush.”

“I can see that it’s working.”

Nick barked out a laugh and covered his face. “Charles Spring, you’re an absolute bully. I am astounded.”

Charlie grinned. “I know. I’m the worst.”

“We both know that’s not true.”

“Okay, okay. I’m just a little awful, then.”

Nick took his hands away from his face, still smiling, but there was something soft in his expression that made Charlie feel nervous and giddy all at once. The other boy reached over and took his hands.

“I think you’re some kind of wonderful, Charlie.”

Nick leaned over and pressed a gentle kiss to Charlie’s forehead.

“So I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Charlie couldn’t form the right words and just nodded vigorously instead, which made Nick laugh.

“Okay, see you tomorrow, then.”

Charlie couldn’t wait for the rest of this summer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that’s a wrap!  
> thank you so much to everyone who read this silly little AU fanfiction. i hope you enjoyed it.  
> i’m considering turning this into a series of casual magic AUs, depending on demand and on my schedule. i had a lot of plans and ideas for this whole universe, including the other characters of the Osemanverse. but who knows.


End file.
